Madeleine didn’t disagree. Her eyes met Elena’s. “Not entirely. At least not…recently.” The words were so soft, weighted with such meaning that every warning klaxon in Elena’s body went off. She fidgeted with the papers in front of her, then fiddled with her pen, as she wondered what to say to that.

A jangling phone broke the tension, and Madeleine’s brow puckered. “That’s mine. Gotta get it. Enjoy your tea.”

She bolted for her desk, her tight jeans and pale-green shirt a blur.

Elena sipped her tea, watching as Madeleine became all business, hunched over the phone at her desk, her pen busy. She was disconcerted by this woman she barely knew, who shared so much of herself. It was unthinkable. She couldn’t imagine ever lowering her guard so much with anyone, even her husband, to share her real self. Madeleine really was like no one she’d ever met. Mystifying and full of contradictions. And what did she mean by saying she’d been miserable except for recently? It sounded very much like she meant their time together. Time that would soon be up.

Tilting her head, Elena could see the side of Madeleine’s face and hear her conversation surprisingly well. The acoustics in her office were excellent, and it had allowed her to pick up a considerable amount of information about office politics.

Madeleine slammed down her phone, grabbed her jacket, and rammed her notebook into a shoulder bag. “I got a lead in Queens. Been chasing it for ages, and it’s finally paid off. Gotta go,” she called to her. “Catchya later.”

Queens? “At this hour?”

“The only time he says he can do it. His mother’s just left for her second job.”

Mother? How old was he?

Elena bit back the words she most wanted to say. Stay safe. She was a media mogul, and Madeleine was her crime reporter. This was all part of what the woman did for a living. She didn’t need coddling. Elena turned back to her work and resolved to think about it no more.

It was hardly her fault that her brain chose to ignore her.

BlogSpot: Aliens of New York

By Maddie as Hell

Bruno, the mechanic who runs a car repair shop next to my apartment building, once told me “when the world gets too overwhelming and things feel too big for us to fix, just change your little corner of it”.

I tried to do that. I held a tearful young man’s hand at one in the morning and made him a life-changing promise. I went home and wrote his story. In another day, it will belong to the world. What will the world make of it? Will it fix what’s wrong or make a liar of me?

Bruno also says we should change our engine oil more often. Make of that what you will.

To change a corner of the world, click here: Ramel Brooks Campaign

CHAPTER 7

Inner Sanctum

Maddie hung up from Simon, who was packing in readiness to go home and realising he didn’t have enough space for half the tourist junk he’d been buying for the past ten months. No, she didn’t want to keep his Statue of Liberty flashlight or the freaking huge, yellow cushion in the shape of a New York cab. After fifteen minutes of haggling, she managed to convince him to pack almost all of his crap and haul it back home.

At the thought of home, she gave her snow dome a fond jiggle. She was dying to hit the beach and shake out her cobwebs. Shame it was all raincoat and boot weather here, or she’d have tried Orchard Beach in the Bronx. She’d have to wait a few months. Her phone rang again, and she glanced at her computer clock. Just past six.

“Hell, Maddie, it’s hell !” Felicity said without a greeting. “I have to be in two places at once. And you’re the only one in that cursed office whom I’m speaking to, aside from the obvious.”

Maddie tried to pick that apart. “You need a favour.”

“Yes, I need a favour, and I can’t…” There was a pause, and Felicity called out to someone, “Can’t you drive any faster? I have to be at the airport five minutes ago. Do you understand that? Comprendes? Christ…” Her sputtering breath returned closer to Maddie’s ear.

Maddie rubbed her forehead. “Just tell me what you need.”

“Right, yes! My desk, in the third drawer, there is a green USB drive. Do not touch anything else. You’ll need to deliver it to her office.”

Maddie frowned. She flicked her gaze to the empty, glass cubicle behind her. “Her office? But—”

“Yes! God, are you mentally impaired? Not that flea pit at your building, I mean Bartell Towers, obviously. Top floor. Do not give that USB drive to anyone else, not security, not someone who claims to be an assistant, no one but her. Do you understand? I will throttle you if you give it to anyone but Elena. This is vital.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Why me? I’m supposed to be writing the crime briefs right now. Can’t you get one of her staff to do it? Like her driver or…” Anyone but me.

The thought of facing Elena again after having shared half her life story the previous night was unnerving. She didn’t know why she’d revealed all that. Maddie had overshared like hell, then spent a sleepless night second guessing herself at how she must have sounded. How embarrassing. At least, this time, she’d been spared the painful “we’re done” dismissal to remind her of her single-cell organism status in Elena’s world. Regardless, it was probably best to give it a long as possible before seeing each other again.

“No!” Felicity said. “ No one else can do this! I need someone who knows where my desk is so they won’t spend half the night rummaging through everyone else’s drawers. And I need someone with half a brain cell. You qualify, just barely. Okay? God, why are we debating this? I’d do it myself, but I have Style Tokyo’s editor-in-chief flying in, and I’m supposed to be there already to meet the flight. Mihoko Morita does not tolerate lateness! And Elena will skin me alive if she doesn’t have that data in her hand in twenty minutes! She has half her empire on standby waiting for those figures to drop. Now—her driver will be downstairs waiting for you. So go! Hurry!”

Maddie’s phone went dead. “You’re welcome,” she told thin air as she stared at the phone. Well, okay. She glanced at her outfit—black jeans, scuffed boots, an old Doors T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. If she’d known she’d be entering the Bartell Corp’s inner sanctum today, she might have dressed up. Okay, maybe not, but she might have worn her nice boots at least.

She jumped to her feet and raced to Felicity’s desk, wondering why her heart was thundering so hard. Was it adrenaline? Or just nervousness at seeing Elena on her home turf?

Once she located the USB stick, she rammed it into her jeans pocket, then grabbed her security pass and bolted down the stairs rather than waiting for an elevator. A sleek town car with a smartly dressed man beside the passenger door waited in front of the building.

“Ms Grey?” the man asked. “I am Ms Bartell’s driver, Amir.”

“Yes. We have to go to—” she began as she scrambled into the back seat.

“I know.” He strode to the driver’s side. “I’ll have you at Bartell Towers in no time.” He pulled out into the traffic. “Are you going to Style New York’s office?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“It’s in the building. I drive a lot of models and designers there at all sorts of hours. Sometimes their photographers like to shoot at night.”

“Oh? No. I’m not a model or a designer.” Maddie laughed at the ridiculous suggestion. “I’m just dropping something off for Elena.”

“You’re meeting Ms Bartell?” He sounded intrigued.

“Yes,” Maddie said, uncertain as to why that was unusual.

“In Ms Bartell’s office?”

“Why?”

“How long have you been working with Ms Bartell?”

“Um, it’ll be a month tomorrow. Why?”

He met her eye in the rear-view mirror and looked impressed. “I have driven her for a long time. It is not often people visit her there. Only her inner circle, or so I gather. So it’s a bit unusual. That’s all.”

“Oh, well, it’s an emergency. It was supposed to be Felicity.”

“Ah, I see.”

They lapsed into silence, as Amir picked up the pace through New York’s well-lit streets.